| The lower South Island. A beautiful area that I had visited back in my university days, and explored very briefly about 10 years ago. Both times I was blown away by the scenery and the un-populated spaciousness of the area. So when an email came out from a group in my 4WD club seeking interest in a safari around the lower part of the South Island, I was in as fast as I could hit "reply". In the lead up to the trip I was sent detailed maps and GPS co-ordinates for the various tracks we would follow (most of which are described in the 4WD touring books available from good bookshops), as well as an itinerary, accommodation plans and likely costs. The plan was to all meet at Pleasant Point, just out of Timaru on a Monday morning and to finish 11 days later at Wanaka. What a trip! The organisers were obviously putting a huge amount of effort into getting this all planned out. My first challenge was to get to Pleasant Point. I left Wellington on the Saturday morning Bluebridge ferry sailing. Despite being quite windy for the last few days, it was a smooth crossing which I spent chatting to some other members on the trip. They were off to do the Molesworth Station trip on the way down, and I was invited to come along, but rather than trying to fit more 4WDing in on the way down, I had decided to make the journey down an easy two-day cruise. Leaving Picton, I was a bit nervous, especially since I was travelling on my own, but I soon settled into a relaxed cruising mode as I headed for my first overnight stop at Kaikoura, somewhere I had never stayed before. By the time I got to Kaikoura it was very warm in the sun but also windy. After exploring the shops I checked into the backpackers and went for a walk along the hills overlooking the town. I then finished the day off walking down to the town centre for fish and chips for tea. The next day also dawned fine and mild. Watching the sun on the Kaikoura ranges while I had breakfast was a beautiful start to the day before I headed for Timaru. I paused at a very nice looking café at Amberley for a coffee and muffin in their secluded courtyard, and again for a picnic lunch at a park in Ashburton. Overall this was also an easy day, and I got to Timaru by mid afternoon. I did a quick drive around the shops (all closed on a Sunday) and had a look at the beach at Caroline Bay before settling down in the garden at the backpackers with a good book. The next day dawned a beautiful sunny morning for the start of the real adventure. We were all meeting at Pleasant Point for a country breakfast. And what a breakfast it was! No menu, just a full Kiwi breakfast for everyone. Some people had enough left over for lunch and dinner. Before we headed off there was the obligatory briefing and a chance to photograph all 15 vehicles lined up. We were also given a quiz sheet to be completed during the trip and handed in on the last night. Our first trip was to see some Maori rock art, and at 8.45 am we were underway heading for the Valley of the Moa and Frenchman’s Gully. After leaving the main road, we followed some dusty back roads before turning off onto a farm track. At the start of the Valley of the Moa I dropped the tyre pressure to about 27 psi just to take the roughness out of the bumps. This pressure would also suit cruising at about 80 km/h on the open road, the speed that we set to make it easier for the smaller vehicles to keep up. Once onto farmland the track was the usual good, undulating surface crossing paddocks and benched into the side of the hills in places. There were lots of gates to open and close, and the very dusty tracks meant that gate duty usually involved getting a dust bath from the passing vehicles. As the track crosses farmland please note that you need to advise the farm manager of your movements and ensure you don’t disturb the stock. In wet weather the grassy sections could be difficult and should not be attempted if you are going to damage the paddocks. If in doubt you should discuss your plans with the farm manager. The two tracks were quite close, with a bit of gravel road to get from one to the other. In each section there was an undercut rocky outcrop that had been fenced off with wire mesh. This contained the rock art – look but don’t touch. To me most of the artwork was not too spectacular – some vague lines that with a bit of imagination made a shape. There were, however some very clearly defined examples, in fact they were so clear that someone in the group suggested that they had been touched up with a felt tip pen! Once we had viewed the rock art it was a short road trip around the farm where one of our party, Linda, had grown up. The trip ended by following Church Road through a ford to the church where Linda and Graham got married. A bit of a trip down memory lane for them. It was then on to Waimate for fuel and lunch supplies. Waimate started out as a sawmilling town in the mid 1800s and today is a thriving service centre for the local community. Its heritage is remembered with a statue and a plaque in the main street. Moving on from Waimate we stopped for lunch in a car park at the start of some of the local walking tracks before heading into the Old Kaiwarua Road – our second real trip for the day. It was fine and mild, ideal weather for the trip, but would it last? Near the start of the Old Kaiwarua Road we had a quick chat with a local farmer who gave us the comforting news that the road was probably open but had seen very little traffic for the last few months. We were also told that the track was blocked by trees at one point but that we could divert over the next paddock to get around the problem. The first part of the track was the standard farm track with no real challenge, but enough to justify having a 4WD. We worked our way around the fallen trees without any problems and headed down a likely looking track. We soon found a tree partly across the track. Having cleared this we carried on another few hundred metres before we came across more trees growing in the middle of the track. As these were quite large saplings, we figured that the track hadn’t been used for several years and was probably not where we should be. A bit of backing soon got us turned around and onto another parallel track. According to the GPS this was very close to our first track, but it was actually down in the valley rather than on the ridge top. After a few km of winding but easy track we found a sign for the Glen Carron forest and were back in sync with our trip notes, to our general relief. From here we spent quite a bit of time following a bumpy track that was not particularly challenging for a 4WD but would be pushing the limits of a recreational 4WD. There were some washouts that definitely required care. We were now in the middle of beautiful rolling hills and there were many stops for photos. We finally turned off Old Kaiwarua Road into Kaiwarua Road. A better gravel surface let us pick up speed for a while, then we went through a gate into a paddock and the road just vanished. After a bit of careful navigating we were back on the track and soon reached the end, turning right for Hakataramea Pass and the McKenzie basin near the top of Lake Benmore. Overall, the road up through the Hakataramea Valley and over the pass is a good unsealed public road sufficiently civilised to even have AA signs. However as we climbed towards the pass there were a number of fords to cross, at least four of which were quite badly cut up and not really suitable for anything but a full 4WD. Obviously these would be maintained and usually manageable by a recreational 4WD, but they illustrate one of the real advantages of having a true 4WD. There were also some quite severe corrugations that I would not like to have been driving in a normal car. The views along the valley as we headed into the pass were amazing, with the road winding its way up the valley, marked by the dust clouds from the vehicles, and with clouds pouring over the ranges as we got higher. We reached the top at 965m and stopped for some photos before heading down the other side. We were now into the real McKenzie Country landscapes that I love, with wide open valleys and views for km across the tussock. A strong cross wind also meant that the vehicle dust was blown away from the road giving everyone clear air to drive in, and a chance to enjoy the scenery. Although there were no fords in this section there were still some very bad corrugations to test both the vehicle and my fillings. At the end of the Hakataramea Pass road we turned southward, heading for Black Forest Road. This is a private road owned and maintained by Transpower for pylon access. It follows the line of the pylons from the northern end of Lake Benmore, over a pass and down to the Benmore Dam at the southern end of the lake. Note that this road has a locked gate at each end and the keys are available from Black Forest Station by prior arrangement. |
Before we reached Black Forest Station we paused at Haldon School – of great interest to the teachers in our group. It was then on to Black Forest Station for the keys to Black Forest Road. Apart from a few slightly washed-out stream crossings Black Forest Road started off as an easy drive around the side of Lake Benmore, the largest man-made lake in New Zealand. This route is part of the Station-to-Station run so as expected, it is in reasonably good condition, but would be challenging enough for less experienced people wanting an off-road adventure. The weather was still fine and warm, but there were clouds whipping over the saddle and I was expecting to be cooler as we climbed. As we reached the top the weather was changing continuously from clear, mild and sunny to being buried in cold misty cloud. With the speed the clouds were moving, the weather was changing two or three times a minute – weird! As we continued down the other side of the saddle it was even stranger, watching the clouds blow down onto the road, then having to drive through them. Following the hills above Lake Bemore the track was well formed with a good surface, but it became very narrow with sheer drop-offs where it rounded a bluff. The weather was a lot cloudier and colder than previously and the track seemed to be going on forever. It was with a huge sense of relief that I finally reached the Benmore Dam at 7.15 pm. It had been a long day. We stopped briefly for people to view and photograph the dam and the spillways, then it was off to the camping ground at Otematata for the night. By now the weather had closed in and it was grey and cold. It was also about 7.30 pm and I was getting tired. This may have coloured my reaction, but when we reached the camping ground at Otematata, to me it looked a bit tired and uninviting for my first night camping . However a friendly reception with good service and an offer to use the lodge common areas after dinner soon restored spirits. After a late tea it was an early night for me, and although it was a bit blustery, I was warm enough in the tent, and woke up refreshed and ready for day 2. This started with the news that Andrew’s little Suzuki Jimny had suffered a gearbox failure. Since it was still under the new vehicle warranty arrangements were made to truck the vehicle back to the Suzuki dealer in Timaru for repair. Andrew decided to go back to Timaru with the vehicle and hoped to rejoin us later, assuming repairs could be done quickly enough. As a side note, when Andrew rejoined us later, he was full of praise for the service he received from the dealer, who had not just replaced the gearbox bearings, but had fitted stronger ones more suited to the rigours of off-roading. With Andrew organised for the trip back to Timaru we were off to fuel up then head to our first trip of the day, a visit to Clay Cliffs just out of Omarama. Access to Clay Cliffs was mainly a good gravel road, but just before the car park there was a deep erosion rut running right across the road. After a bit of earthworks we got through and continued on to the car park and a sign advising that beyond the car park was 4WD only. We were tempted to move the sign to just before the washout! Clay Cliffs consists of a deep basin where the sides have been eroded into a fantastic array of clay and rock spires, very similar to the Pinnacles formations in the Wairarapa. We all walked up to the basin and admired the cliffs before returning to the main road and heading for Birchwood Road/Ahuriri Valley. The low cloud cleared as we drove and by the time we reached Ahuriri Valley there was a clear blue sky. Birchwood Road is a easy 2WD track up the Ahuriri river valley with spectacular, open vistas of a braided river and snow-speckled mountains – the sort of scenery that makes the trip worthwhile. Because we needed to be at Morven Hills Station at 11 am to pick up the key our run up the Ahuriri Valley was only to fill in time and we didn’t get all the way to the end, but it was certainly a worthwhile scenic diversion. Our main trip for the day was a drive around Morven Hills Station, near Lindis Pass, with accommodation at the station that night. We turned up at the appointed time at what we hoped was the right gate, but there was no sign of anyone to let us in. We had just reached the point of wondering if we should go to the station itself when with a roar of engine a helicopter appeared over the ridge and settled on the track just inside the gate. Our key had arrived – and in style! We were given a route for the day, told to enjoy ourselves on their 14,000 hectares, then left to our own devices. We headed up the well-formed track into the hills, but unfortunately we only got 10 minutes into the trip before Ian’s Defender started having problems with loss of power. While the mechanics in the group sorted this out the rest of us enjoyed lunch on the sunny hillside surrounded by amazing, peaceful scenery. Lunch over and problem sorted (we hope) it was off again through more amazing scenery. The tracks were quite easy for the most part, but with a few sharp stream crossings that really limited access to true 4WDs. It was still very dusty and the area looked quite dry to me but we were later told that this was considered well watered by local standards. We also ended up herding a flock of sheep at one point. Some of the sheep scrambled down the bank beside the track to cross the road and came down right in front of me – as they do. I half expected one to come in through the passenger’s window as they jumped down the bank where the track had been cut into the hill. We stopped first at Dip Creek Huts, a small collection of huts, then at Polson’s Hut, a restored boundary keeper’s hut. The story attached to this hut is that in the winter of 1869 Mrs Polson gave birth to premature twins. Cut off by snow, they were unable to get help and the twins both died from the cold. Their graves are in the next valley, marked by a headstone made from a slab of schist, slowly being swallowed up by a willow tree. Stories like this make me realise what a hard life it must have been here. Returning to the ridge top from Polson’s Hut we found the track became a bit less well defined as we crossed a few paddocks, and there were a couple of pauses while we searched out the right route. The driving now became more challenging with some very steep climbs on narrow tracks with quite severe drop-offs. It was a relief to get to the top. Pausing to enjoy the view, I realised that there was a main (sealed) road running down the valley in front of us. Amazing, I thought we were far from anywhere. One final steep and rough descent and a quick run through to the shearers’ quarters and the trip was over the day. We were welcomed at the shearing shed by Richard Snow, who runs the station with the help of his wife Anne. He gave us a brief history of the station and the shed. The shed was built back in about the 1870s when Morven Hills Station covered 162,000 hectares, and has 34 shearing stands. Today with the original station being split up Morven Hills Station covers 14,000 hectares and only six stands are needed. Coming from wet and salt-laden Wellington, we were all amazed that the shed still has the original corrugated iron roof. That night some people stayed at the shearers’ quarters while some, like me, took advantage of the fine weather and tented. With the fine weather and great cooking and showering facilities, this was a much more positive experience than the previous night. Two days down and seven to go – to be covered in future articles. |
